• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Games not known for their high difficulty you found surprisingly hard

Sephzilla

Member
Super_Mario_Bros._3_coverart.png
 
The Last of Us. Got too impatient to stealth through most of the game, so I played it on Easy and had a blast. Didn't have to worry about supplies and ammo, but foolish gameplay was still punished.

Also every Megaman and Megaman Zero game.
 
Rayman on PS1 comes to mind, but that game is generally regarded as tough, so idk. That said, I didn't expect it to be the hardest game I'd ever played, which is exactly what it turned out to be. People who think Tropical Freeze is a very difficult platformer would probably become physically ill if they tried the original Rayman. Tropical Freeze is nothing compared to this.
 
No More Heroes 1 and 2 are a real bitch on Bitter.

it took me 40~ minutes to kill Bad Girl in NMH1 and I never beat Henry. In NMH2 the final boss is already a shitbird but on Bitter its just awful
 

Jer

Member
I found Super Castlevania 4 really hard when I played it last year, and I don't think it's known for it. Between pit deaths and having to restart the whole world at a game over, it was rough going on a real SNES with no save states. I got through it, but it made me feel like I suck at gaming.
 

GamerSciz

Member
First Crash was tough. The hitboxes and whatever may be messed up in some wa, dunno about that, but I feel most people are just blaming the sifficulty on it instead of themselves and that they'd have the same issues with the original game. 2 and 3 were a lot easier. Haven't played the remake.

The added physics make the game harder. They made Crash not be able to jump as high and if you hit the edge you slide off whereas in the original you would just land on the very edge. It requires you to make even more precise jumps.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Yeah idk I found the game brain dead easy on hard.
Same.

Rayman on PS1 comes to mind, but that game is generally regarded as tough, so idk. That said, I didn't expect it to be the hardest game I'd ever played, which is exactly what it turned out to be. People who think Tropical Freeze is a very difficult platformer would probably become physically ill if they tried the original Rayman. Tropical Freeze is nothing compared to this.

Yeah, if Rayman isn't known for its absolutely brutal difficulty, it sure as shit should be.
 

AlexBasch

Member
To this day Metroid Prime 2 is one of the most frustrating, hard and balls crazy insane difficult game I have ever played.

I'm usually bad at videogames but I have beaten stuff like Dark Souls, Dante Must Die modes and got Big Boss Rank at MGS1-2, so I'm not afraid of facing a challenge. But that game? Fuck it so much.
 
God of War HD

Granted I skipped most of the games of that era but I found it way too difficult and not fun - even on Easy. It seems like when Kratos is hit, he always takes a second or two to recover and it's easy to get stuck in a cycle where you're constantly being hit and stuck because you can't move thanks to the recovery period. Plus portions like the bit with
the big enemies where you have to make them stand on the switch to open the gate were annoying (and I felt unnecessary). Even the "push the box to the other side so you can climb and kill the archers" bit at the beginning
was frustrating.

Between that, having to use save points, and the poor camera I don't think I'll go back to the games.

Shadow of Mordor, I always was getting killed and couldn't do anything.

Gosh yeah this too. Always felt like there were 10 or 15 orcs ready to surround you, even at the beginning.
 

kurahador

Member
Transformers Devastation. The game is fun as fuck but then "Defeat these 3 bosses". This game really killed my desire to get platinum trophy.
 

Accoun

Member
LEGO Racers as a kid. Back then it literally took me
half a year
to beat the game with Basil The Batlord and Gypsy Moth being HUGE difficulty spikes. Even worse than Rocket Racer himself.
Although I went back to it a few weeks ago inspired by the LGR video and finished it pretty quickly. That being said, I also replayed it 1-2 years ago on my PSP and still had problems. Maybe I'm just better with a keyboard.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
Viewtiful Joe

"Right I'm an adult now, let's pick adults"

Bosses were ridiculous button sponges, once I got to Fire Leo I youtubed to see how the hell it was done. Then I learned about the Red Hot 100. Tbh it kind of breaks the game

I remember this one giving me a nasty surprise when I tried the demo. It looked harmless enough so I picked Adults and oh boy did it kick my ass. It took me years to get good enough, but when it clicked it was a blast and I breezed through it and the sequel.
 

10k

Banned
ARMS Grand Prix level 4 (out of a possible level 7 cpu difficulty). The real final boss (Hedlok) doesn't even appear until level 4. If you choose level 3 or lower you get Maxx Brass as the final boss and no ending credits.

Problem is level 4 is a huge difficulty spike for me and it took over ten retries to beat it lol.

I'm not sure if ARMS is supposed to be considered challenging.
 

PSqueak

Banned
Gonna echo Breath of the Wild and Crash 1, tho i guess thanks to N. Sane trilogy, people will start remembering as really hard.
 

KORNdoggy

Member
Not sure this counts since it's only a small part of a larger game, but the fishing mini game in jak and daxter was the first and only time i've ever smashed a controller. I think i failed that mini game more than i died playing all the souls games combined, and i'm not joking. Lol
 
Dragon Age: Origins.

Even on normal difficulty, there have to be both a dedicated tank and healer in my party. Even then I still run into very challenging fights and the occasional game over. I cannot understand how people steamroll through the harder difficulties without even relying on a tank and healer.
 

The Dink

Member
Animal Crossing: New Leaf. The Puzzle League minigame they added in the amiibo update. It gets real hard real fast in story mode. Which is surprising considering its aesthetic and all. They remind me of the last levels in Kirby Avalanche. Speaking of:
Kirby Avalanche. Later levels were insane back in the day.
 
If you have MGS2 substance/HD edition, do the VR missions, they're super fun and they will teach you the mechanics and strategies that translate over to the campaigns.

Also in MGS3, you sneak if you use the d-pad to move :p

I know lol. Playing on a Vita, so that's L+ left stick for me.

Seriously? Oh normal.

Please stick with it, it's one of the best in that series

Maybe it hasn't "clicked" with you yet?

I'm more in for the story, but I felt that MGS2 was far more manageable on the same difficulty.
 

chadtwo

Member
I'm embarrassingly bad at The Last of Us, although to be fair part of this is that I often reload if I'm not happy with the way an encounter has gone, rather than actual death
 

Wood Man

Member
I was playing Tokyo Jungle and just couldn't get very far in it. I like the concept and really wanted to get into it, but I just couldn't survive.
 
Everyone always says Shadow of Mordor is too easy but I tried playing that game 3 different times and hit a wall every time. I always get overrun by too many orcs at once and just can't take them all on.
 

xviper

Member
Kingdom fucking hearts, why no one talks about how difficult it is ?? it's one of the hardest games i have ever played, soulsborne series is nothing compared to KH's difficulty

i played KH 1 on ps3 on normal difficulty, it was a nightmare, i had to play KH2 and BBS on PS4 on easy difficulty to finish them
 
Pokemon. People always talk about how easy they are, but I always end up running into some really tough sections and struggling at parts. Maybe it's how I do my team (I just grab whatever pokemon I like the look of and want to see evolve, though I try to keep a spread of types) but I actually find the games on the more challenging side.
 

Crayolan

Member
Breath of the Wild's early game is known for its high difficulty, especially compared to previous Zelda games. It's only the latter half of the game (as in, like 30-40+ hours in) that the difficulty drops off.
 

RangerX

Banned
Shovel Knight. It's regarded as an easy game, but I suck at it. I always thought I was good at platformers. I lose a ton of gold everytime I play. I probably am not patient enough with the bosses and just try to attack them without learning their attack patterns.

Some sections of the later levels can be frustrating but halfway through the game most bosses became laughably easy because of a maxed health bar and three chalices of Ichor from the troupple king that refills your health and magic.
 

Sande

Member
Horizon.

I was expecting dicking around in an open world more or less as a god. But in reality enemies hit hard and even on normal there is a genuine danger of dying in many fights if you're not careful.
 
Toy Story (Genesis/Super Nintendo)

Considering the age group of the audience that saw the movie and wanted to play a Toy Story game, the difficulty really caught me off guard. It's a basic platformer, but there are so many frustrating aspects to it that I get a bit heated anytime I play it.

For starters, you only get 5 hit points, and for some damn reason, your HP doesnt refill when starting a new stage. If you took 4 points of damage and beat a level, you better be good at dodging or you'll immediately lose a life on the next one.

Speaking of lives, you have 3 to start with, with no continues. In order to get extra lives, you have to collect every star in a level. While this does promote exploration in a way, by the time you get to the later levels, you'll be getting hit by so many enemies and objects that you'll lose more lives trying to get a 1-up than you would just trying to beat the level.

Continues can only be gained from getting 300 or more stars in your total score. Given that there are exactly 50 stars per level, you'd have to get 6 "perfect" scores on the first 6 levels just to get 1 continue before the halfway point of the game. That's including the auto-scrolling "race" sections where you only have one chance to get the stars, as well as the Buzz boss battles where stars he drops can disappear in a second.

Then there's the problem with how the characters control. Woody basically has the Belmont jump, and his whipping can be a bit unresponsive at times (this is a bigger problem in the Super Nintendo version). What bothers me the most though is trying to grapple onto hooks with his pull string. It's way too short and often doesn't connect to hooks for swinging (which can be mandatory for progression at times). And dont get me started on the "driving with ice wheels on ice" slipperiness of the RC Car segments. Just awful.

The difficulty is also really uneven. The game starts off fine then hits huge difficulty spikes toward the middle (Claw Machine, Sid's Room, Scud), then goes back down to simple right after.

This is a game that requires alot of replaying and memorization to get good at, which is fine by me. It came out in an era where even the licensed kiddie properties were challenging, but it still caught me off guard back in the 90's and on replaying it a year or two back.

Yeah, replaying that game kicked my ass

Not sure about the SNES version but the Genesis version throws so much random bullshit in that game it's hilarious. First-person section inside the claw machine? Done! Side scrolling shooter (without actually shooting). Done!
 

Cartho

Member
I find Destiny's story missions pretty tricky actually, esp when played solo. They have some pretty unforgiving moments in them and you die fast.
 

CHC

Member
Final Fantasy Tactics - had to restart the game multiple times. I think the difficulty and frustration were, for me, compounded by the fact that you have to laboriously watch the enemy decimate you even though you see it coming. Once I get some Ninjas and stuff it became laughably easy but there are just SO many ways to build a shitty party that it's bound to happen if you go in blind.

Hollow Knight - yo WTF!? I've platinumed Bloodborne, this was immeasurably more difficult. Personally, one of the hardest, is not THE hardest time I've had finishing a game, ever. Just ballbusting section after ballbusting section. Every time I got a new tool it just allowed me to go to some new place that would fucking ram me right up the ass. Really had such a difficult time with this one. I think in some cases I went to the "wrong" (read: much higher level) areas, but still I just found most everything past like the second area to be nightmarishly tough. The difficulty sort of plateaued around the last few bosses / areas, but not enough for me to reassess how hard I found the game overall.
 
Breath of the Wild's early game is known for its high difficulty, especially compared to previous Zelda games. It's only the latter half of the game (as in, like 30-40+ hours in) that the difficulty drops off.

I'm 70h (killed all 4 guardians) into the game and it didn't drop off for me. :/ Also, what other way is there to kill Guardians efficiently other than parrying? I tried shooting an arrow into their eye and punching them to death but it takes a while in comparison.
 

Sölf

Member
Age of Empires 2. I like Real Time Strategy, I played quite a lot. I also finished most AoE 2 campaigns. But only on easy. Back when it was re-released in the HD Version, I decided to try and finish the campaigns finally on normal. I am already stuck on the second Saladin mission (after beating Jean and Wiliam Wallace though). The AI totally wrecks me in versus mode as soon as I put it higher than easy.

Seems I totally suck at this game. xD
 

Gloggins

Member
Laser Disco Defenders, a PS Plus game from a couple of months ago. I simply can't beat it. Either the game doesn't have checkpoints or I haven't reached them.
 
Bayonetta for me. Started playing it after Nier Automata and wow the jump in difficulty is intense. Automata was too easy but this is almost too hard. Much harder than the typical AAA action game of last gen, I think. Looking forward to picking it up for the third time on Switch, I think I'll get more out of the game in a portable format.
 

Sölf

Member
Kingdom fucking hearts, why no one talks about how difficult it is ?? it's one of the hardest games i have ever played, soulsborne series is nothing compared to KH's difficulty

i played KH 1 on ps3 on normal difficulty, it was a nightmare, i had to play KH2 and BBS on PS4 on easy difficulty to finish them

Kingdom Hearts is a funny one. Now I am only playing it on the hardest difficulty nowadays (I beat every single one except the Final Mixes of 2 and Birth by Sleep though), however I remember when I first played KH 1 and KH 2 back in the day and still on Normal, I always got stuck at at least one boss in the game. And with stuck I mean I got really stuck for hours or I had to level up just to beat them.

And whoever wrote about the final room before Ansem. This fucking room was the reason why I abandoned my Level 1 run (which was hell in itself). I just couldn't do it. It was impossible for me.
 
A 3DS indie game called Witch and Hero.
Most of the game is relatively easy, though a small amount of grinding was involved. It always felt manageable.

Then I got to the final boss and its ridiculously insane. I've failed it enough times to max out all my stats. The boss has multiple different forms and I've gotten to the point where I take 0 damage up until the last form, and still can't beat it. Has anyone here actually finished this game?

WAH_ss03.bmp
 

Octavia

Unconfirmed Member
Ori and the Blind Forrest.

Rage uninstalled this game because in those sections that make you start from the beginning every death, besides that being difficult (and sometimes obtuse on what to do) on its own, I couldn't take buttstomp being permenantly mapped to down on the dpad and having to CONSTANTLY fight that all game with the 360's mushy pad.

It's nearly a once in a lifetime event I get mad at a single player video game but I was about to rip that controller to shreds and chuck it out my window.

Considering the game was on 360 only for a while and forced you to use that dpad, I consider that part of the game's difficulty.
 
Top Bottom